Food Avoidances and Aversions - San Jose State University



Food Avoidances and Aversions

How Do They Affect Food Habits?

Forbidden Fruit

Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge; in biblical writings, it was a fig; early Greek bibles called it malum (evil and fruit); Romans identified it as the apple during Celt/Roman conflict in 5th century; since the Celts revered the apple and apple cider, the Romans picked it as the forbidden fruit to remind new Christians that older non-Christian religions were forbidden knowledge

What makes the apple forbidden?

Seductive colors (if red)

Sweet and bitter flavor

Suggestively feminine core

A hidden pentagram shape believed to be associated with Satan

Associated with lust and was sometimes associated with venereal disease

In colonial America, apples were prized for the subsequent hard cider, not as a nutritious fruit to be eaten daily

The “Love Apple” – The Tomato

It was red and luscious (juicy)

Its plant resembled the mandrake (aka Satan’s Apple) the root of which resembled a shrunken human body and contained demon spirits; both mandrake and tomato in the nightshade family

It was peddled in American in early 1700’s as being from Eden’s Tree of Eternal Life and eating would keep one alive for ever

First gained acceptance in sauces that were considered to be insidiously Satanic because they glorified the act of eating

Only in 1820, according to local legend, Robert Johnson ate one in New Jersey prove it was not poison and then set up a tomato canning factory

Cacao and Chocolate

It was the sacred brew of the Aztecs; early Americans believed it incited both violence and lust and was preached against, but its supposed influence on love stayed with it; in 17th century France it was associated with aristocratic tastes as an aphrodisiac that symbolized power

Corn – From Sacred to Demeaned

Native Americans believed that corn was sacred and that the first humans were made from the corn plant, when the first Europeans fed corn to their horses, the Indians attacked them for their blasphemy

Europeans who colonized the Americas, demonized corn as being of “hard and evil digestion” or caused scabs and “burned the blood”

In Colonial America, corn was assigned to the poor classes and servants, no American cookbook had a recipe until the 19th century

It was judged to be animal or pig food, eaten as junk food (snacks, popcorn) and “corny” means “trite”

Corn eating in the South by the poor resulted in widespread pellagra due to niacin deficiency because the European colonists did not pass down the Native American way of processing the corn in an alkali bath that made niacin nutritionally available in the corn (example of cultural bias)

Beef – Parts are Parts or Are They? In America, burgers and steaks are eaten but other portions of cattle are avoided

Headcheese – muscle meat cooked from the head and made into a cold cut with gelatin from the bones in the head

Tongue – avoided because of what it looks like and because it is sold whole

Eyes

Brains – used to be aesthetic now health with Mad Cow’s Disease

Feet – considered to be dirty, are rich in gelatin

Tail – rich soups and stews

Bone Marrow and Bones, Heart (offal from the word off-fall butchers term for what falls out when carcass is gutted), Lungs (not legal in USA), liver, spleen, stomach (tripe), intestines (sausage casings), abdominal mesentery lining (caul), sweetbreads (thymus glands young animals), kidneys, testicles (mountain oysters)

Pork – Avoidance or Acceptance

Avoided in Jewish and Moslem religions as well as Ethiopian Coptic Christians

Ancient Egyptians associated pig with the God Set, who played an mixed role among the gods in the Egyptian pantheon

There is one theory that “for some Middle Eastern cultures, the transition of the pig from a sacred to contemptible animal represented a facet of the conflict between settled indigenous peoples of an area who kept pigs and successive groups of invading pastoralists who did not” Schwabe, 1979

Eating Pigs as a Facet of Culture

Based on Schwabe’s theory: If the pastoralists dominated, as they frequently did, then they rejected eating pigs as a food custom of their enemies or conquered subjects

Currently, in the Kosher and Halal traditions, animals that operated in more than one realm (earth, water, sky) were forbidden; for instance the pig has cloven feet but does not chew its cud (it eats as we do!!)

Lamb,Mutton & Goat

In the USA, lamb that is sold is frequently old enough to be sheep elsewhere

Most lamb & mutton rejection is based on the “taste” which in the case of mutton can be associated with the fatty portion which can mimic the way a wool sweater smells

Goat rejection is based on assumption that the meat has an objectionable smell and that it is tough

Horse

Many Americans object to eating horsemeat because of its “nobility” and unsuitability for food; some objections were also due to the historic Catholic church prohibition to break horse-eating habits among horse worshipers

Our position has gone from taboo to avoidance to abhorrence (since many Americans descend from horse-culture peoples) and in that way is similar to Hindus who will not eat cow’s meat

Dogs

The dog is considered a companion and friend to man in the USA but: for centuries the Chinese raised the black tongued Chow for food; dog is also eaten in Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands and in parts of Africa; the Mexican hairless dog was eaten by the Aztecs and among the Indians in the eastern United States, the Central Plains and California, Hawaii and American Samoa

Colonial Europeans abhorred eating dogs and hence other cultures in contact with them concealed dog eating habits

Rabbits

American prejudices: the feeling that “bunnies” are pets and the problem of relative scarcity in the American markets (the omnivores paradox - the unfamiliar is not good)

Wild rabbit and hare is even more rare and is viewed with suspicion because of the American avoidance of meats with a suspected gamy flavor

Rodents

Avoided as being repugnant and nauseating

Squirrel, Opossums, Raccoons (Eaten in the American South), Groundhogs and Prairie Dogs (eaten by American Indians)

Guinea Pigs (eaten in South America)

Rats and Muskrats

Poultry or Fowl

Duck – regarded as pets and hence avoided

Chicken and Turkey avoided because of their edible innards in America; chicken is avoided in other parts of the world by certain groups; some parts avoided by Americans such as chicken feet

Reptiles

Turtles – avoided because thought to be lethargic, loathsome, dangerous, cold, slimy or as non meat; also as endangered

Lizards - i.e. iguana avoided because they look like dinosaurs

Snake – feared, they slither, are venomous, can flex when caught and seem slippery and slimy (they are not), have repulsive tongues, concern about “original sin”

Fish

Avoidance based on smell (easily spoil) and for oily fish – their taste

Heads and tails repel some people

Bones make them more difficult to eat

Some Indians believed water was sacred and thus water creatures

Frogs and Eels

Frog avoidances based on cold and slippery feel, swampy and algal-grown habitats, expectation that they will smell and taste fishy

Eel avoidances based on: slippery, slimy water snakes, furtive and seldom seen creatures of the murky deep

Sharks

Avoidance based on fear and loathing, their appearance, the remote possibility they may have eaten another human (similar reason for avoidance of crabs and other marine scavengers)

Insects

Avoidances based on repulsion and unfamiliarity

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